Layjiani nods her agreement with the half-elf's proposal and, gently ushers everyone out of the room. She then closes and locks the doors behind her. She then carefully puts the key away on her person while making it clear to the others where she puts it. All done in a nice orderly fashion; she is sure the turtle men would approve.
To the double doors at the south end of the long hallway, then?
I would estimate that given thet you have explored, investigated and pryed into every corner you came across..you've been in here about 4 hours(there have been lots of take 20s)
"Indeed!"
You move back to the hall and head for the door
The door set in the south wall shows a great pillar,radiating light. It is very similar to the one shown in the bas-relief of this hall.
The doors are not trapped and push open easily
A large crack in this octagonal chamber’s ceiling allows in wind and rain. In the shower of rain are splinters of wood and half rotted scrolls and scroll tubes.
The room’s white walls, roughly twenty feet to a side, are smooth, save for a frieze of carvings near the ceiling ten feet above you. They depict turtle-like humanoids engaged in various activities.
On either side of the entrance is a row of hooks; white robes hang on some of them.
Directly across from the entrance is a great stone pillar, standing in the middle of the chamber and reaching almost to the ceiling. It is covered with symmetrical patterns and geometric carvings mirrored on the floor. The pillar pulses with soft white light.
Gashelle whispers, mainly to Aude and Layjiani, "So, if the room with the ziggurat was dedicated to Centivus the Shaper, do you imagine this room is a temple to Ildavi the Giver of Form or to Choranus the SeerFather?"
"Fascinating ..." Eltariel murmurs. She uses detect magic to analyse the dweomer on the pillar and then scans the room carefully. Her eye is drawn to the freeze of the turtle man touching what should be the glowing pillar, thinking it may have some significance.
The pillar is radiating an extremly strong divination Aura.
Suddenly Layjiani point at the cieling beyond the piller.."What in the hells is that" she cries.
You look and see a writhing black mass on the ceiling..suddenly it breaks apart and takes wing towards you..a swarm of flying scorpions
Eltariel responds immediately, rasing her hands she recites an incantation and sends a cone of fire into the advancing swarm, then retires behind the party fighters, taking out her wand of burning hands.
Casting burning hands: area effect fire damage.
Initiative:
The archer swiftly removes one of her specialty alchemist fire arrows, takes aim on the swarm and releases.
Attack: (is still a ranged touch attack?)
Crit roll?:
Damage: (+1d6 fire and splash)
EDIT: (x3 for crit?)
Aude scuttles back 20 feet behing the hindmost of her friends
Holgur realizes that weapons are of little use against the minute things and waves his torch at them in an attempt to drive them away.
intitiative
attack
Swarms, Gashelle thinks grimly. She casts ray of frost on the swarm. (Ranged touch attack: ; damage )
After her shot the ranger moves off several feet away from her companions, trying to present as many separate targets for the swarm as possible.
A swarm is a collection of Fine, Diminutive, or Tiny creatures that acts as a single creature. A swarm has the characteristics of its type, except as noted here. A swarm has a single pool of Hit Dice and hit points, a single initiative modifier, a single speed, and a single Armor Class. A swarm makes saving throws as a single creature. A single swarm occupies a square (if it is made up of nonflying creatures) or a cube (of flying creatures) 10 feet on a side, but its reach is 0 feet, like its component creatures. In order to attack, it moves into an opponent's space, which provokes an attack of opportunity. It can occupy the same space as a creature of any size, since it crawls all over its prey. A swarm can move through squares occupied by enemies and vice versa without impediment, although the swarm provokes an attack of opportunity if it does so. A swarm can move through cracks or holes large enough for its component creatures.
A swarm of Tiny creatures consists of 300 nonflying creatures or 1,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Diminutive creatures consists of 1,500 nonflying creatures or 5,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures, whether they are flying or not. Swarms of nonflying creatures include many more creatures than could normally fit in a 10-foot square based on their normal space, because creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together and generally crawl over each other and their prey when moving or attacking. Larger swarms are represented by multiples of single swarms. The area occupied by a large swarm is completely shapeable, though the swarm usually remains in contiguous squares.
Swarm Traits: A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernible anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits or flanking. A swarm made up of Tiny creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage. Reducing a swarm to 0 hit points or less causes it to break up, though damage taken until that point does not degrade its ability to attack or resist attack. Swarms are never staggered or reduced to a dying state by damage. Also, they cannot be tripped, grappled, or bull rushed, and they cannot grapple an opponent.
A swarm is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate), with the exception of mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms) if the swarm has an Intelligence score and a hive mind. A swarm takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells.
Swarms made up of Diminutive or Fine creatures are susceptible to high winds, such as those created by a gust of wind spell. For purposes of determining the effects of wind on a swarm, treat the swarm as a creature of the same size as its constituent creatures. A swarm rendered unconscious by means of nonlethal damage becomes disorganized and dispersed, and does not reform until its hit points exceed its nonlethal damage.
Swarm Attack: Creatures with the swarm subtype don't make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed. Swarm attacks are not subject to a miss chance for concealment or cover. A swarm's statistics block has “swarm” in the Attack and Full Attack entries, with no attack bonus given. The amount of damage a swarm deals is based on its Hit Dice, as shown below.
Swarm HD Swarm Base Damage
1–5 1d6
6–10 2d6
11–15 3d6
16–20 4d6
21 or more 5d6
A swarm's attacks are nonmagical, unless the swarm's description states otherwise. Damage reduction sufficient to reduce a swarm attack's damage to 0, being incorporeal, or other special abilities usually give a creature immunity (or at least resistance) to damage from a swarm. Some swarms also have acid, blood drain, poison, or other special attacks in addition to normal damage.
Swarms do not threaten creatures, and do not make attacks of opportunity with their swarm attack. However, they distract foes whose squares they occupy, as described below.
Swarms possess the distraction universal monster rule. Spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a caster level check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills that involve patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Will save.
The good news is that I checked and the swarm is in fact made up of tiny creatures..that being the case your weapons will affect it.
But its only 50% extra from area effects
Initiative order is
Avinar 21
Holgur 20
Layjiani 17
Gashelle 16
Eltariel 15+
Swarm 15-
Aude 11
Avinar stands ready as does Holgur with his torch.Layjiani's arrow flashes through the mass of chittering scorpions and bursts on the ceiling crisped arachnids fall to the floor.Gashelles ray kills a single scorpion but has no other effect unlike Eltariels arc of flame which burns more of the flying menace.
The swarm moves in on you..Holgur and Avinar unleash furious blows against it. Mothers kiss knocking scorpions from the air and Holgurs torch proving surprisingly effective. Aude turns to run but the. admittedly now much reduced swarm engulfs Her Gashelle, Avinar and Holgur.
AoOs from the engulfed characters please.
Eltariel will kick off in F-13. She will have to delay until the swarm is approaching before setting off her burning hands spell, hopefully effecting the squares indicating as the swarm comes on, striking all four swarms. She will then retreat at least 5-10 feet, ending in F-15.
H-12.
G-12
Put Avinar in E12
Since she's fighting ranged G16 (giving others lots of room to get out etc.)
That works for this DM..AoOs please
F17 in fact . Aude did also retreat
AoO
Aude moves after the swarm..so she'll end up there but I still want an AoO from her...
For this , Aude would have to have a weapon drawn ... This is not the case
Avinar AoO
damagehalved =2
And the swarm?
is Gashelle going to make an AoO...
The swarm attacks..the insects overwhelm you and their stings hit unprotected flesh
Gashelle takes 10 damage
Aude takes 16 damage
Holgur takes 8 damage
Avinar takes 7 damage
I require 6 fortitude saves from each off you who was hit
Avinars saves
Ouch!
On her turn, Gashelle will move to H10 or H9, so that she's of the swarm, repositioning the glaive in both hands as she does so, and then attack. , halved to 6 points.
Moving to E8 and unleashing a channeling burst
If the swarm is considered as a creature , Aude excludes it from the channeling
Much to her surprise,Gashelle's glaive sparks with Axiomatic light as it slices through the swarm..
additional damageso total damage on the swarm is 10
Surprise, indeed!
"My friends, this swarm is either intelligent enough to have made a moral choice towards chaos, or else it is summoned from the outer wilds themselves. In either case, it certainly doesn't belong in these halls of law."
Round 2
Avinar 21
Holgur 20
Layjiani 17
Gashelle 16
Eltariel 15+
Swarm 15-
Aude 11
Aude and Gashelle both experience muscle cramps from the poison(lose 2 DEX)
Avinar seemingly unaffected whirls away from the swarm Mothers Kiss batting scorpions from the air.He moves to E11 on a 5'step
Flurry of Blows
Damage halved =2
(Damage on swarm so far 55 points)
Damage from last rounds Alchemists fire:
Layjiani tries to aim for an area or part of the swarm which won't affect her allies and unleashes another alchemists arrow at the insects
Attack:
Damage:
Fire Damage:
Splash Damage: 1 (to all in 5')
I did count it and I diced for the fire and also got a 6 so no change there. What I didn't tell you was how much damage Holgur and Avinar did on their attacks. The damage noted at 55 was correct..
Layjiani's arrow flashes into the much reduced swarm and explodes bringing more of the vile vermin tumbling to the ground as scorched bodies.
(now 65 damage on the swarm)
Holgur gets a small burn(1 point) Avinar avoids the splash altogether(evasion)
The swarm now consists of less than a 1/4 of the creatures it had at the start
Waiting for Holgur to post his saves and the attack for this round
Holgur tries to ignore the pain of the stings in order to fight intelligently rather than just flail away with his torch.
Fortitide save
Attack
Eltariel switches from the wand to a scroll and advances to finish off the swarm.
"Aside friends!" she calls in warning before using the scroll of burning hands.
Burning Hands: area fire damage.
Making the remaining fortitude saves for Holgur.
The swarm is almost completely dispersed(73 damage to it so far]
Gashelle has already attacked this round.